OMG! You told it all wrong! And since I am older than you, I know I have the earlier version:

Two astronauts land on the (pick your planet) and meet a little green man (okay, so let's make that Mars).

Three hours later, after attemtping all 150 langauges known to man on earth, the bianry system, computer languages (that's your specialty Jameel - definitely not mine. [I'm still waiting]) and various sign langauges as well as Yiddish, they are just about to give up trying to establsih communication.

So, that's when one of the astronauts gets the idea of creating fire. Fire is the basis of all civilization. If they can get the creature to say his word for "fire", they have a start.

So, he lights the match and the little green man starts jumping up and down, all crazy like, and shouts out: "Shabbes, Shabbes!".